If I was an NBA player, exec, or owner, I'd be very, very afraid. The numbers are mind boggling. The Pistons led the league last year in attendance? Huh? The worst NHL team beats the NBA league average.

This may be an overreaction, but could we go back to the days when stars were only making 5mil per? Everyone is talking about the cap, but what about the MLE? It's based on average salaries, how long before it drops.

Here's the scary thought, the NBA is getting about a billion a year from their national tv contract which expires in 5 or 6 years. What happens if the economy doesn't recover by then, more people surf than watch tv, and tv add revenue plummets. Could the next tv contract drop in half and we have a 30 million dollar salary cap?

Imagine paying 50 percent of your cap to Lebron, Wade or Bosh, and your team still doesn't win?

The union has already punished the rookies, but the vets will try to squeeze any transitional costs to a lower cap out of the youngest and most promising players. All unions favour seniority at the expense of the newest members.

The TV contract is probably safe but gate receipts and concessions will take a big hit. People will choose to stay home rather than splurge on a night out, paying with a credit card they can't afford, funded by a home equity line of credit they should have never taken out.

The NBA played too big too loose and too fast. The number of people who saw this coming two years ago are a fraction of a percent of the economists and financial planners at large.

More NBA games are televised on both local and national TV, (and NBA LP) so some fans never attend games when they can get all of the replays in the comfort of their home on their 42 inch TV with no cost. You got to have the NHL network or Versus to see any Hockey games other than your home team.

I only went to 3 games all last season, Pistons at Warriors, Suns at Mavs and the Pistons at Clippers) and four the season before that (Knicks at Lakers, Pistons at Clippers, Pistons at Mavs and Pistons at Magic.

True Hockey fans could not see their favorite road teams so probably decided to attend the games and I have to assume that the tickets prices are lower for NHL games too.

The NHL, like MLB and NFL caters to the hardcore fans first, and the sidewalk gawkers second.

The NBA is the only league that caters to the fan who doesn't have a team. I was on a Google email list a few months ago, and there was a discussion about the NBA that centered exclusively on LeBron and Kobe. No one knew who Rafer Alston or Andrew Bynum were. That is the market the NBA targets.